Journal of Rollo Lavius 1

Entry #10 - It's nice not to be stabbed

(G10 - OR)

I foolishly told the others about the money, 100 platinum coins, and an argument ensued as to who should have it. Raz maintained that we should just keep it, while everyone else agreed it didn't belong to us. So I decided to give it to Shifty while myself and Nobby, my partner in crime, went to Lady Vanderboren's mansion to tell her the ship was secured.

She was pleased to hear it and Corra returned with us. It also turned out that the animals had nothing to do with her or her mistress so we could keep them.

I tended to the animals needs and calmed them down. It was late evening by now, so Nobby and I escorted Corra back to the mansion again, along with the one hundred coins since we had finally agreed to give it back. Lady V could give the money to Herek or someone else from the port authority.

Lady V was pleased to get the fee back, and indeed looked surprised and increased the reward to each of us by a hundred gold. I don't see myself as some sort of mercenary hireling, but it had been a rough night, I had been stabbed and was pretty tired so I just took the money without further comment.

DAY 9

So, back at the ship, we waited until the wee small hours until some of Lady V's retainers arrived to secure it.

We took the animals back to the house by donkey cart, but I had to bride the surly gatekeepers of the city. Again I was too tired to complain. Still, we had time for sleep and when I woke up I felt much refreshed.

The others did their own things, but I spent the afternoon dealing with the animals.

(For further notes see Beast Journal Entries #190 to 202)

Using a 'Speak with Animals' spell I dealt with the following in turn.

1. The Lizards I will keep as pets. They are happy to bask on the roof and eat lettuce.

2. The snake I put into baskets for further study. The venomous ones are separated.

3. The monkeys I offered freedom to. Most left for the jungle, but four stayed.

4. The bonobo chimps I offered freedom to, and they accepted. They seemed to know where there home was and gave me simple directions there so I might go give them a visit sometime to see the entire family.

5. The three-toed sloth seemed happy to hang from a beam in the house so I have kept him.

I shall call him 'Clarky'

The dead rodessa (an insect the size of a mastiff!) I am going to stuff and mount. In the early evening, Shifty and I went into town to do some shopping. Now, despite my general dislike of hunting when I was in my youth, I must admit there appears to be more of my father in me than I at first thought. He trained me and all my brothers in the use of crossbows , short bows and longbows and I did become reasonably proficient in them despite lacking any real desire to hunt. But now, here in Tashluta I have been using a crossbow again and well, it is just as well! So many of the animals around here are dangerous and the only way I will get to study them is to shoot them first.

So today I bought a masterwork long bow, arrows and a butt and set it up to practice behind the house. It was amazing how quickly all the training that my father had forced on me came back and I really enjoyed shooting at the target tonight.

How will it be if I have to shoot an animal or even another person I have no idea. I also wrote some letters tonight, including one that will delight my father I'm sure, telling him of how is youngest son has taken up the bow again.

Tonight as well, Corra came round and asked us to go to Lady V's in the morning.

A whole day without being stabbed - huzzah!

DAY 10

So, we wandered over to Lady V's. I took a short detour to the docks to handed my letters over to a northbound ship. Hopefully they will make it to Waterdeep.

From the mansion we took a coach and a boat to Castle Teraknian where the vault is. This is the vault for the ring that we recovered from the Blue Nixie if you remember.

Her vault was under the castle, one of several by the look of it. Shifty opened the vault door with the ring and stepped inside looking for trouble.

It wasn't long before he found it either as two, well, I can only describe them as large metal snakes, attacked him. We all joined in.

They were quite hard to fight as their skin was so tough, but between Raz's axe and my magic we managed to destroy one of them. It went down in flames, a victim to my Flaming Sphere spell.

We were all injured by this time. No stabbings today, just a big poisonous bite from this nasty snake. Lady V came forward slowly and the last snake backed off. We then realised that the ring held back the constructs so fighting them had been unnecessary all along.

Anyway, Shifty, who had been useless in the fight, proved his worth by finding the secret door to the next room, which turned out to be a puzzle chamber.

There were seven wall carvings all around a central pillar. There had been a piece of paper with the ring that mentioned five animals.

Well, we worked it out eventually, just me and Nobby, the other two were useless. It had to do with turning the pillar to the animal that had the same number of eyes as an animal depicted on the wall. So, a chimera has six eyes, so it was turned to the picture of a six eyed beholder etc.

The combination worked and the walls revealed many treasure chests. Lady V opened them all but was dismayed to find that they were mostly empty.

Upon asking the clerk of the castle it appeared her brother, or at least someone else with the other ring, had been coming to the vault and helping themselves.

She paid us some more money. I think next time I might ask her for something other than money. A man has to eat, but I don't really want to make a living hiring out my help to all an sundry. I would rather send back papers to the Lyceum in Waterdeep and see if the elders would provide me with a grant to allow me to further study the creatures of the jungles of Tashluta.

Instead though I seem to being dragged along this road of being no better than a mercenary or some sort of hire-sword. It's my own fault for keeping such rough company I suppose (Nobby excluded). Perhaps if I saw Lady V more as my patron than my master I might get on better?

Still, I didn't come all this way to enter into the service of a local lord, I could have done that back at home, like my brother Elric did. I came here for study.

Also, if I was going into service, would I want to do it for Lady V? I have met people like her before, back in Waterdeep. They have disfunctional families and attract trouble to themselves like moths to a flame. The last thing I would want to do is get mired in someone else's family fued with all the backstabbing and treachery that goes with it. And as we all know, the first pieces to be sacrificed in chess are always the pawns!

Mind you, my father would be delighted if I did go into the service of some lordling, that's exactly how he started off in the world.

I am so confused! The long bow, the offer of service to local lords - I'm turning out to be just like my father and brothers after all!